"stuck in some bardo"

I wrote most of this in my purple moleskine at Vericon listening to Lev Grossman attempt to wrangle a (in my opinion) poorly put together panel.

In my ideal world, 80% of my reactions to events could be summed up as "well, that happened." I know when I misstep (see: the CK reading, and the class introductions on Wednesday) and I know that I can't go back and change the first impressions, or even anything else about the past, so I'm trying to cultivate a "well, that happened" feeling, rather than replaying conversations over and over again in my head. Which doesn't mean I'm not interested in learning from my mistakes, only learning that I can't change them.

Sometimes I want to call people out, even when I have no way to compel truth, no history, no obligations to do so. I can't ask an almost-stranger to commit to trying, and I can't ask them why they don't want to try to build something, because I assume they've chosen not to build the thing.

I, on the other hand, decide that I want a connection and purse it, recognize people as having the possibility of being something to me and want to make that real. And if I can't cajole meaning out of it, it's because I failed to find the right way to present myself, failed to prove useful in the right way. And often, why I want to know is not because I want to change for the person with whom I did not connect, it's because I want to find out what the hell happened, what clue I missed, what other path I could have taken, so next time, I can figure out if I want to bend in that way or not.

Light has spoiled me past all reckoning. He was the first thing worth working through the crazy for, the first time I took a leap of faith. Hell, he was the first reason I started to understand how faith isn't just stupid vulnerability. (not entirely true. I had unshakeable faith in the lack of an afterlife, and a stubborn belief that when you died, you got to Stop Being, and not being me was the best reward I could imagine and I just had to wait long enough) In part, because I feel like he kept letting me try and fail and try again. In part because after a few times when we both failed to stick the landing, I have never doubted that I am important to him. Sure, there's the day to day stuff, where sometimes I feel like he's ignoring the world in favor of a video games, but there's also the times when I just succumb to whatever bad input my brain is telling me and become mean and/or depressed.

I'm not discontent, I have awesome people in my life, and my normal weak point of wanting to talk to people on the internet is being handily solved by a) trying to pack 50 hours of work into 20 hours of time at work and b) learning to put the computer down when I'm home. Just like I'm going to do right now.

"stuck in some bardo"

I wrote most of this in my purple moleskine at Vericon listening to Lev Grossman attempt to wrangle a (in my opinion) poorly put together panel.

In my ideal world, 80% of my reactions to events could be summed up as "well, that happened." I know when I misstep (see: the CK reading, and the class introductions on Wednesday) and I know that I can't go back and change the first impressions, or even anything else about the past, so I'm trying to cultivate a "well, that happened" feeling, rather than replaying conversations over and over again in my head. Which doesn't mean I'm not interested in learning from my mistakes, only learning that I can't change them.

Sometimes I want to call people out, even when I have no way to compel truth, no history, no obligations to do so. I can't ask an almost-stranger to commit to trying, and I can't ask them why they don't want to try to build something, because I assume they've chosen not to build the thing.

I, on the other hand, decide that I want a connection and purse it, recognize people as having the possibility of being something to me and want to make that real. And if I can't cajole meaning out of it, it's because I failed to find the right way to present myself, failed to prove useful in the right way. And often, why I want to know is not because I want to change for the person with whom I did not connect, it's because I want to find out what the hell happened, what clue I missed, what other path I could have taken, so next time, I can figure out if I want to bend in that way or not.

Light has spoiled me past all reckoning. He was the first thing worth working through the crazy for, the first time I took a leap of faith. Hell, he was the first reason I started to understand how faith isn't just stupid vulnerability. (not entirely true. I had unshakeable faith in the lack of an afterlife, and a stubborn belief that when you died, you got to Stop Being, and not being me was the best reward I could imagine and I just had to wait long enough) In part, because I feel like he kept letting me try and fail and try again. In part because after a few times when we both failed to stick the landing, I have never doubted that I am important to him. Sure, there's the day to day stuff, where sometimes I feel like he's ignoring the world in favor of a video games, but there's also the times when I just succumb to whatever bad input my brain is telling me and become mean and/or depressed.

I'm not discontent, I have awesome people in my life, and my normal weak point of wanting to talk to people on the internet is being handily solved by a) trying to pack 50 hours of work into 20 hours of time at work and b) learning to put the computer down when I'm home. Just like I'm going to do right now.